Sunday, Jun. 04, 2006

X3 Review


Okay, apologies for how the quiz in the last entry boogered up the screen and stuff. I sort of fixed it, though it still looks sort of funny. But, considering how ridiculously unknowledgeable I am in matters of HTML, I'm tickled I was able to tweak it so that it looks more legible and less stupid than it did. So, yay.

Now, spoiler warning -- If you have not yet seen the movie "X-Men 3: The Last Stand", and you do not wish to read details of said movie, then move along quietly. You now have been warned, so if you continue to read, and then end up knowing something about the movie that you didn't want to know about, it's your own damn fault. Thank you, drive through.

A little background on my X-knowledge: I did not read these comics as a kid. What I know of these characters comes exclusively from occasional viewings of the Saturday morning cartoon that they showed in the 90s, and from the movie franchise. The cartoon was almost always on, from 10 - 10:30a, in my house, but it was my roommates who were more interested in it than I was. As it was college, half the time I was awake by then on a Saturday, and I wasn't offended by its presence. Though, neither did I get up specifically to watch it.

So, essentially, I'm coming in pretty late to this whole thing, as is fairly normal for me. I always seem to catch the train late. But I sure liked the first two movies a whole lot, and the premise of the universe is fascinating.

Now, with all that said, X3 isn't my favorite of the three movies. I think I liked X2 the best, then the first movie, and then X3. Why X3 last? Well, to reiterate a complaint that a lot of critics and other folks I've read seem to have had, I got almost no feel for the new characters that were introduced to me, enmasse and in passing. After the movie, I kept having to ask Husband (who did read all the comics as a kid and who is wildly knowledgeable about most things in the Marvel Universe.) who everyone was and if there was special significance to this, that or the other, because otherwise? Most of the characters were scenery. Even the "repeaters", the big ones, like Magneto and Mystique and Rogue. I just didn't get a good sense of development, and the whole storyline seemed very chopped up to me.

Plus, what was with all of the front-stage character death? Cyclops? Professor X? Jean, again? That kind of big name knocking-off is unheard of, in most franchises. Remember, too, that I'm a big time Star Trek fan, where killing off anyone major is A Very Big Deal. Hell, the media furor in the sci-fi community surrounding Tasha Yar's death was huge. And, in X2, I was very stunned by Jean Grey's sacrifice.

But, to have her come back, and then go out all Angelus-into-Angel-style, with Woverine as Buffy, was crazy and sad. Cyclops was just sad, as in, here's this poor guy tortured by the death of his beloved, he's responsible for waking her up, or whatever happened when he lased the water, he's beyond overjoyed to have her back in his arms... and then she... what? Sucked the juice out of him? Absorbed everything but his glasses? That part's left all vague, too, though I don't know if it was intentional or not. Maybe they're leaving a hatch for him to potentially come back in the next movie, a la the time-tested soap opera trick of "you never found the body and so the person's not necessarily dead, you just *assumed* he was dead, and you know what happens when you ASSume, right?".

But, still sad. And then Professor X going out like Obi-Wan in Star Wars, with the folding up his light saber and closing his eyes, so to speak, and submitting to his student's homicidal whims. So, following that train of thought, that would make Jean Vader, but when the moment came for her to turn away from the Dark Side, that means that Wolverine's actually Luke, and that's a weird image, because I'm getting my sci-fi/fantasy metaphors all mixed.

But, can I say? Watching Wolverine stagger towards Jean/Phoenix, his skin being flayed from his adamantium-enhanced skeleton by the awesomely frightening power of her mind, her unbridled anger Hell-bent on unmaking him right down to his component atoms, and his flesh *growing back*, only by virtue of his insane, mutant regenerative gift, so that he can stand before her and proclaim his willingness to die for her? One of the most incredible, goose-bump-worthy scenes, ever. And, one of the most romantic, in the true sense of the word.

Though, that leads me to another point. Is anyone allowed to be happy, in the X-Universe? Ever? I mean, yeah, I get that being a mutant is no box of bon-bons, and that the world shakes down differently if you have these incredible powers or if you can't fit in, or both. But it seems, from my limited perspective, that everyone's dying unhappy or grieving, or something.

At any rate, I think I need to watch it again, to make a better call. I still liked it more than most movies out there, but I was really hungry for character development, and I never got it.

saturncat at 10:57 p.m.

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